Stately 2011 Celebrations!

New Years Eve is always such a problem to deal with! Same loud parties, gobs of booze, earsplitting fire-crackers, speeding automobiles, cops everywhere and all other forms of bizarre nuisance! And if all that was not enough, a splitting hangover to welcome the New Year!

I wanted to skip all that for once and welcome the New Year in a more peaceful way. I always dreamt a new year start in my most comfortable pajamas, with my closest friends, at a place where our words aren't drowned in booming Bollywood numbers, and wish them a very happy New Year!

I decided to just do that.

My friend Meenu is an honest-to-goodness blue blooded princess. So we decided to give her big forts a little call.

Meenu’s nana UDAYSINHRAO NARSOJIRAO SHINDE was the ruler of Torgal Jagir in Karnataka (http://uqconnect.net/~zzhsoszy/ips/t/torgal.html) and left some magnificent forts, farms and temples for us to celebrate a Stately New Year!

We four friends started from Pune on 31^st December morning at 6.30am.

Pune-Kolhapur NH4 (6.30am), 4 lane divided highway.

There are many good breakfast places on the highway, but don’t fall for their promise of authentic kolahpuri meals! Hold your hunger till you reach Kolhapur, tambda rassa and sukha mutton at Opel will satisfy your petu-chuhas like never before!

Google map for your direction

Kolhapur-Nipani-Gokak-Torgal NH4, SH134 – NH4 till Sankeshwar, turned left on SH134, towards Gokak. Gokak -Yergatti-Katkol-Torgal (bad ruffled road).

We reached Toral at 2.30pm.

There were Meenu's people (praja) gathered to welcome us with docile smiles, they touched Meenu’s feet as a gesture of respect and Meenu blessed them for a happy life :-) It was our turn to bless them now! Meenu’s had already warned us about the ritual and suggested us not to panic at the standpat ritual. When they touched my feet I tried to touch their's back to everyone's embarrassment. However Akhil and Samir had fun acting all royal!

To my pleasant surprise the farm wasn’t a bric-a-brac-y-palace with jail-like-concrete-walls and a massive barred iron gate, instead it was a cozy little dwelling parked on the banks of a small brook.

Farm

We planned a barbeque-night and masquerading all royal asked our helping friends to arrange for it!

Here you go ma'am!

Barbecuing chicken

Perfect 01.01.11 morning

Picnic-y afetrnoon

Fishing

Monkey on an Imli tree

Next day after having a lovely breakfast of upma prepared by Diwanbi and we went to see the Torgal Fort.

A run-down, parched fortress which was once surrounded by a moat and dense green forest, stood overlooking a stream of water.

Family temple behind the fort 'Bhoothnath' was built by Meenu's forefathers (she wasn't sure of the exact year). Restoration work by the State Govt. was on when we visited.

Bhootnath temple

Architecture and some sculptures of Bhoothnath temple were strikingly similar to Khajuraho temples.

A girl helping another girl to remove the thorn stuck in her foot. Same statue in Khajuraho too!

Next we went to a Veerbhadreshwar's(god to the local lingayat) temple, a live temple build much later by Meenu's family.

Godachi Temple

A special pooja is done for the royal family members every time they visit the temple. We too were graced by the special pooja and chants were read out to bless us And what more? We were garlanded!

Devotees come all round the year to the temple, but last week of December is when the yearly ‘jatra’ is celebrated, people flock in thousands to pay their respect to lord-Veerbhadreshwar. Lac diyas around the temple are lit every day during the Jatra.

Prasad time

Meenu's nana

We were offered prasad(lunch) at the temple but we politely refused though our stomachs were growling from hunger...how could we miss Diwanbi's Chicken Pulav and Caramel Custard for temple's sambhar-rice :P

Diwanbi with he daughter

A lovely start to 2011. Cheers to new-places, new-people, new-cuisines! Cheers to new-life!